Deborah M.Lehr

Basilinna HeLLC,CEO & Founding Partner

Mrs. Deborah Lehr serves as the CEO of Basilinna, a strategic business consulting firm focused on China and the Middle East. In addition, she is the Vice Chairman of the Paulson Institute.
Deborah previously built and managed two successful consulting businesses representing diverse Western and Chinese companies such as Sesame Workshop and Tory Burch.
In addition, she served as Senior Advisor to the Chairman and CEO of Merrill Lynch and was a partner at Mayer, Brown, Rowe & Maw
Deborah also served in the U.S. Government where she was a lead negotiator for China's WTO Accession at the U.S. Trade Representative, a Director of Asian Affairs at the National Security Council, and involved in export control and trade policy issues at the Department of Commerce.
Deborah is a founder and serves as Chairman of the Antiquities Coalition, focused on fighting against the looting of cultural heritage by organized crime and terrorist organizations.
Deborah has lived and studied around the world, including China, England, France, and Germany. Her writings appear regularly in the Huffington Post, and have been published in Foreign Affairs, the South China Morning Post, U.S. News and World Report, Caixin Magazine, and Xinhua.net, among others. She has also appeared on television speaking about China as well as antiquities trafficking.
Deborah is on the Board of the Archaeological Institute of America, the International Advisory Board of the London School of Economics, the World Monuments Fund and the Middle East Institute. Deborah is
also a member of the Council on Foreign Relations. UNESCO has nominated Deborah as one of its inaugural list of accomplished global women.